It'll Take The Serpent Awhile To Eat All Those Characters

Reading the Justice League portion of Batman Beyond Unlimited #3, I thought it was kind of interesting that during Waller's description of how Kobra plans to use the serpent, as she mentions using the Mother Box to send it to other realities and eventually New Genesis, all the worlds we see were Jack Kirby creations.

It starts with Kamandi and the Serpent coiling its way around what's left of the Statue of Liberty, then Atlas being encircled by it, then OMAC watching it rise from the sea before him, and finally with the Forever People being chased by it.

The Forever People make sense, as that's the panel when Waller mentions the Serpent destroying New Genesis to restart the creation**. Still, it's probably not a coincidence all the others are Kirby creations as well. I mean, it's not as though DC is hurting for other timelines or realities to use. Earth-2, Gotham by Gaslight, Red Son, Kingdom Come, etc.

Waller says the serpent is the Ouroboros, which as you may know, eats its own tail. DC (and Marvel) have a track record of relying on the same old characters without managing to successfully push new ones. And Kirby's characters and ideas are some of the ones that get used the most often, sometimes in ways which don't really do credit to them (Countdown and Death of the New Gods spring to mind as less than spectacular endeavors with the characters). So they get chewed up and spit out in slightly different ways, over and over, and it gets you nowhere. Although that suggests all those characters need to be destroyed, because otherwise no one will ever make anything new.

Or it could be a comment on creators' right. DC (and Marvel) don't have a great track record there, either. Their practices give them the majority of the control (and profits) related to characters, but also create an atmosphere that discourages people from adding their best ideas to the DCU or Marvel Universe. Which is how you wind up with everyone just dragging out the same old characters over and over again, while saving their own for some time or publisher where they can get what they feel is their fair share of the pie for what is their work. Maybe that's more "cutting off the nose to spite the face" than "eating your own tail".

* Side note: I like that in each panel we're the Serpent is closer to us, which lets us see less of it until the last panel, where we see its fangs and gaping maw chasing the Forever People. The bit of its body we see actually lines up perfectly with a section of it that's twisting out of the ocean in front of OMAC in the prior panel.

** Which makes sense considering the 4th World emerged from the ashes of the 3rd, so naturally the 4th would have to go if you want to bring about the 5th, right?